Jim Kelly once said, “There’s not one person who’s even been through our training camp who could cover him. Nobody could cover him one-on-one”. Jim Kelly wasn’t referring to Andre Reed (HoF WR) or James Lofton, he was referring to Steve Tasker who only had 51 career receptions over 14 years in the NFL. Steve Tasker was 5’9’’ was arguably the best gunner in NFL history making 7 Pro Bowls and was the only special teams player to ever earn Pro Bowl MVP (1993). A gunner is a position on the special teams who’s sole role is to break free from defenders during a punt to tackle the returner and limit their return yardage. The goal of my analysis is to build on the initial research done by Michael Lopez to add specific metrics to evaluate Gunners in the NFL. (https://operations.nfl.com/gameday/analytics/stats-articles/visualizing-the-special-teams-gunner/ )
We will be using 2020 tracking and scouting information to create two models to evaluate Gunner effectiveness during punts. The models are:
1. Tackle Opportunity Probability Model
2. Expected Gunner Distance at Punt Reception over Expected
The play below is 3 yard punt return where Nsimba Webster (#14) and David Long (#25) are vying to either limit return yardage by way of tackle opportunity creation or force a fair catch. Webster here is credited with the tackle.
If we break down the tackle opportunity by frame, we see that Webster had the higher probability of tackle up given his burst past the Vise (#29) but dropped in probability when #18 on the Punt return came to help to shield. We think that although Webster was credited with the tackle, he may have gotten a bit lucky with the returner running back into him. There’s a few things we can learn from this play, which goes into how to evaluate Gunner performance.